Comment: This survey that was published in Opettaja shows that 41% of teachers that were polled would like to place caps on children with immigrant backgrounds at their schools. Contrarily one third of those polled would not place any such limits. According to every fourth teacher, larger numbers of immigrant children increase commotion and noise in class as well as violence in schools.

For some the results of the survey is no surprise since other ones have shown that teachers’ attitudes of immigrants have been as negative as the police.

The poll brings forth interesting questions. One of these is if public servants like teachers can limit who they will serve. Can the police do the same? Is segregating schools by placing caps constitutional?

Everyone knows that if such an extraordinary measure were to be taken, it would be by the government – not by teachers.

At best these surveys show how difficult it is for some in Finland to still accept cultural diversity as a normal matter of our society. A lot of work must be still done.

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” According to every fourth teacher, larger numbers of immigrant children increase commotion and noise in class as well as violence in schools. ”

Teacher work with these kids all day, they know what they are talking about. The same is happening in the UK. Schools with high numbers or certain groups of immigrants have already installed metal detector at the front door.

“Well, we could be well on the way to creating a multi-ethnic, multicultural, multiracial dystopia. The evidence from the head teachers before the Oireachtas Committee was terrifying: Tony McGinley, principal of St John the Evangelist of Adamstown, said that schools were dealing with “cultural differences that they did not fully know or understand, including discipline issues, and in some instances, complicated further by tribal differences from within the one country”.

Tribal differences from within the one country: what on earth were we doing allowing such people to come here? What possible benefit could we derive from having some of the pleasures of downtown Lagos being relocated to west Dublin?”

Tony, using “multiculturalism” as a scapegoat for ineffectual integration/adaption/equal opportunities is not the way of going. If they would have embraced your recipe of assimilation the problems would have been far worse. You still have not showed me an example of where assimilation has worked.

Your way of seeing things is, I am sorry to challenge you, undemocratic and a pipe dream. By stating that you want only people who YOU think will be best for this country (how and who judges that?) is the same as asking mothers to only give birth to “good” future citizens. That is not how things work. The grand majority adapt but there are always a few that do not. How many do not adapt is a good example of how we have failed as a society. Some politicians, certainly, point the finger at immgrants and wash their hands of the problem.

Please don’t be sorry for challenge me, that’s why we are here for, to debate our opinions. That’s why I was so disappointed that you refused to give us your opinion about implementation of Sharia in Finland.

Anyway, let me go through your points…

“If they would have embraced your recipe of assimilation…“

Who are they?

“You still have not showed me an example of where assimilation has worked. “

Just everywhere. The question is not “where” but “who”. Those who decided for assimilation are doing very well everywhere they go. Here is where we differ, you believe the solution is in public policies, I in the other hand, believe the solution is only in the immigrants hands. Assimilation is not a policy but an attitude.

“how and who judges that?”

The Finnish society, just like any other civilized society, through its democratic mechanisms, has been decided what is good or bad, right or wrong, legal or illegal, accept or refuse. It’s not different when it comes to immigration and culture.

“is the same as asking mothers to only give birth to “good” future citizens.”

No, it’s not. The mother only gives birth to a neutral citizen. After that, it’s up to her to put the child in the right path to eventually becomes a good citizen. That’s why race makes no difference but culture does.

“How many do not adapt is a good example of how we have failed as a society. “

Wrong, this is a good example of how much our immigration laws needs to be modified.

Going on to another interesting story that popped up yesterday, Kyösti Tarvainen, the math teacher at Aalto University, sent a letter to all of the Greens stating that it was a mistake to accept Muslims as candidates. Here is the link. Tarvainen is the person who published in Helsingin Sanomat last year his prediction that Finland would be overrun by Muslims. He used his pocket calculator to tell us what our society would look like in the future.

In my opinion, this type of behavior coming from a teacher at Aalto University does no good to the reputation of that institution never mind crossing the line of what is appropriarte and inappropriate.

The problem, I believe, in Finland is that debate on immigrants is still at such an early stage that people like this can say anything as long as its xenophobic to get the attention of some people. This is exactly the case with Jussi Halla-aho and his group. They feed on people’s fears and ignorance. If I live thirty more years, I would like to write a story about all these outrageous comments and publish them. It would be similar to hearing in the context of this century Alfred Rosenberg telling us about The myth of the twentieth century, or watching Der ende Juden.

–The Finnish society, just like any other civilized society, through its democratic mechanisms, has been decided what is good or bad, right or wrong, legal or illegal, accept or refuse.

Certainly they already decide that already but to do it on an ethnic basis is against our principles. Think of skills and forget ethnicity and religion. You cannot classify people in groups because societies are too complex and do not work in such easy general definitions.

Our society, democratic mechanisms, would exclude people from coming here. What kind of an atmosphere would that foster in Finland. Even before people come here, we are already excluding certain groups. This is a perilous path.

Enrique, your reasoning has a major flaw. If the attitude Finns are having against Muslims is because immigration in Finland is on an early stage, how do you explain the very same attitude coming from countries like Denmark, UK, Germany, Italy or France, places with a long history of immigration?

“Certainly they already decide that already but to do it on an ethnic basis is against our principles.”

What is or not against our principles is also decided by our society. It’s very much against our principles remove someone’s freedom, however in some cases, like when a crime is committed, we can remove a person freedom by put him in jail, without going against our principles.

You cannot talk about principles in a can/cannot do manner because societies are too complex and do not work in such easy general definitions.

“Our society, democratic mechanisms, would exclude people from coming here.”

That’s called national sovereignty, and every country has the right to control its border as it believes most suitable.

Mr. Muslim doesn’t argue against Tarvaines’s claim that in case of a Muslim majority parliament, Finland’s democracy and equality would be damaged by the implementation of Sharia. Instead, he’s arguing how difficult would be a Muslim majority parliament in Finland.

So you are in favor that Muslims should be denied rights to vote and take part in our democratic system? You seem to forget one important piece of information: people change, culture changes – it is not the same thing in principle as “home.” Inclusion is paramount to ensure the survival of our democratic system.

Why then he argued against the claim in that way? Why not clearly say that no matter how much Muslims are in the parliament democracy, freedom and equality will always be preserved? It makes one wonder…

Now you tell us, would you have any problem with the hypothetically case of a Muslim majority parliament in Finland?

Enrique, but do you honestly think cultural diversity is a normal matter of Finnish society? I think we could say that about Canada, USA, Australia, Brazil, etc. But isn’t Finland one of the most homogenous countries in Europe?

–Enrique, but do you honestly think cultural diversity is a normal matter of Finnish society?

Why not? Maybe the proper question to ask is why do some people in Finland feel that we are monocultural, whatever that is. Monocultural is only a term to justify the discrimination of other minorities.

Probably because there are few immigrant kids in most schools (for now) . The article says that the student body is less than 10 percent immigrant in 50 percent of schools, while about 20 percent of schools have about 20 percent immigrants; a bit less than 10 percent of schools do not have any immigrant students.

Sorry Mateus let me correct you, one of the most homogenous country in the world. This whole theory of multicultural Finland is based on Swedish and Russian influence in Finland throughout the years. Now you could tell the difference between Swedish, Russians and Finns.

–Sorry Mateus let me correct you, one of the most homogenous country in the world.

How do you measure this homogenous society. Says who? Some Finns? By the way I will give you a clue, Tony. If we look at our gene pool it could be traced to places like Holland and other regions. Our common language comes from Central Russia and we are linguistically related to the Hungarians, Estonians and Saami. We were also under Swedish rule for about 500 years and under Russian rule for 100 years. Moreover over a million Finns emigrated. Sure, that makes us really homogenous.

I believe that we are living in denial of who we are because (1) we are still building a national identity and (2) because we have been under threat (Soviet Union). National unity is then a racial thing that fuels a common national front against a “foreign enemy.” That is why all these Halla-ahos all the way to Keijo Korhonen have let out the following message: We are being invaded. Our homogenous country is being invaded by hordes.

Risto Laakonen, a man I respect a lot, said that whenever Finns start to speak of themselves as a tribe (homogenous group?) they flirt with racism. I agree totally with him.

In one of my posts in my blog I comment on the Government’s absurd initiative to “subsidise” Brazilian Carnival. In brief, taxpayers’ money will be given to Carnival groups and God knows how this money will be spent. But the ultimate issue is: why should I financially support a cultural event which I don’t like, in which I don’t take part and which has nothing to do with my own culture?

I guess this will be a hot debate in Finland as well if/when the “multiculturalisation” process moves on. How will people react to the distinction between “my taxes” and the “others’ taxes”? I picture a situation in which a huge muslim mosque, for instance, is built by the government.

–I guess this will be a hot debate in Finland as well if/when the “multiculturalisation” process moves on.

Do you mean, Mateus, by multiculturalization cultural diversity of Finland? How do you think this can be stopped in a globalized world and being an EU country? Remember we trade with the world and our realtions are reciprocal.

“In one of my posts in my blog I comment on the Government’s absurd initiative to “subsidise” Brazilian Carnival.”

I particularly don’t like carnival and can’t see a better way to waist public money, however, interesting enough, the carnival in Finland is not celebrated by Brazilians but by Finns. There about 5 “escolas de samba” in Finland they are all run by Finns. We look at the pictures and all the musicians and dancers are all blond with blue eyes. For some reason Finns just like carnival.

“I picture a situation in which a huge muslim mosque, for instance, is built by the government.”

That’s difficult to happen. When it comes to built mosques Muslims are always very well funded by private money, usually Saudi or Iranian money, just like the Ground Zero Mosque. For some reasons we don’t find hospitals or research centres funded by them, but Mosques? No problem…

-Why not? Maybe the proper question to ask is why do some people in Finland feel that we are monocultural, whatever that is.

I asked you that because Finland has never been a traditional destination for migrants. It hasn’t received massive contigents the way Brazil or the USA did.
So, for example, it is nonsense for a Canadian to complain about migrant workers seeking a better life, because this is ultimately what all Canadians did. But Finland, as a people, already existed before the European Maritime Expansion. I suppose this gives Finns a feeling of cultural unity, apart from ownership of the land.

–I suppose this gives Finns a feeling of cultural unity, apart from ownership of the land.

I would say that a majority of Finns don’t have a problem with immigration. I understand your point and maybe the “isolation” of Finland was brought on during its independence and reached its zenith during the cold war. The whole history of Finland after World War 2 was to reintegrate back into Europe. This culminated in 1995, when it joined the EU. The feeling of being a “homogenous” group was fuelled during that period. Remember also that everything foreign, like our surnames, were changed in the 1920s in this country. We molded our Finnishness by erasing traces of our “foreign” past.

-‘What is the first thing you must learn about a democracy? The minority respects the votes of the majority, always.’

Enrique then explain to me why you didn’t ‘respect’ the majority’s vote on banning the building of minerats in Switzerland or the deportation of foreign criminals back to their homeland also in Switzerland. You wrote articles on these issues saying that the voting results should be challenged even though it was proved without any question of doubt that the majority are in favour of them. Remember this wasn’t some leader or a party making up these policies but was put to the general public in a referendum. You obviously don’t follow what you preach and are a hypocrite lacking any consistent structure to your arguments.

–Enrique then explain to me why you didn’t ‘respect’ the majority’s vote on banning the building of minerats in Switzerland or the deportation of foreign criminals back to their homeland also in Switzerland.

Look around yourself. Unless you live on an island farm, the chances are that nearly everything you see is of foreign origin. If you do live on an island farm, then the Finnish names of many of the features and artifacts in your surroundings are so far removed from modern Finnish usage that many Finnish speakers have to look up these words in a dictionary (words like hollihaka and the difference between a piilukirves and a vipukirves). The Finns have a Swedish legal system, a Russian administrative system and German religion. Our industrial and service base was largely established by foreigners, is substantially owned by foreigners, and depends utterly on understanding the values, aspirations and needs of customers all over the world. It follows immediately from this that isolationism and xenophobia are very bad for business.

The culture of modern Finland is so far removed from the life of the mythical torppari as to be entirely unrecognisable, and almost all of that difference comprises international influence. Only the ignorant can continue to believe that there is anything really significant that remains truly and uniquely Finnish (and this includes the Finnish language, despite decades of artificial resistance to linguistic convergence). This is hardly surprising. Look around yourself again: how much of your surroundings did you make with your own hands?

Finns make up less than 0.2 per cent of the world’s population. In a globalising and competitive world we would not expect them to make more than a very minor contribution to the lifestyle of modern communities, but if you perceive this as a threat, then you sound like you want to live in a house that you personally designed and that you built with your own hands using only materials that you gathered in person and tools that you made yourself.

People acclimatise to the culture that they are born into. Young children in Finland are currently acclimatising to a culture that differs substantially from the culture to which their parents acclimatised at the same age. We have to recognise that we are all products of precisely the wicked influences that once so concerned our grandparents, and yet the alleged wickedness of those influences now seems utterly ridiculous to us. How many people currently in their 50s believe that their lives were morally ruined by the Beatles and the swinging sixties?

-‘ Our common language comes from Central Russia and we are linguistically related to the Hungarians, Estonians and Saami. We were also under Swedish rule for about 500 years and under Russian rule for 100 years. Moreover over a million Finns emigrated. Sure, that makes us really homogenous.’

These justifications for describing Finland as multicultural is completely flawed. Enrique out of all the languages in Europe even the minor ones how many of them are not related to any other language and are a language isolate? There’s only one yes only one Basque.

Being under the rule of another country doesn’t necessarily make it multicultural. Pakistan was ruled by the British, Philipines by the Spanish and Indonesia by the Dutch. They gained independence much later than Finland. Now would you describe any of these countries as Western or even resembling much from their rulers? No

Since when does emigration make the country being left muticultural? Completely illogical and frankly ridiculous.

Emigration makes a country more multicultural in several ways. It greatly increases international travel and grassroots interaction with people from other countries, establishes new dimensions of national identity, increases the percentage of mixed and intercultural families, and creates the conditions for return migration.

With over a million people of recent Finnish descent living abroad, there are more than three million people in Finland who have readily identifiable relatives living in other countries. There are more or less well-established identities such as Finnish-American, Finnish-Argentine and Finnish-English that did not exist in 1850. Finnish summer camps for young people tend to attract individuals with identities of this kind, who thereby come into close contact with their Finnish peers. Ingrian returnees have had a relatively powerful impact on Finnish culture over the last 20 years (indeed the school students of immigrant background discussed in the lead article for this thread are very largely Russian-speaking Ingrian returnees).

But as you say, all of this is completely illogical and frankly ridiculous. The advocates of the phlogiston theory of combustion said the same thing to Priestley and Lavoisier.

Let’s use real life examples. Even though Germany has around 2.5 million Turks has Turkey become in any way noticeably become more German? No. Sweden has around 120,000 Iraqis has Iraq become in any noticeably become more Swedish? No again. I can go on and on such as Pakistanis in Britain or Moroccans in the Netherlands. So this idea that emigration leaves the country more multicultural is as I said before completely illogical and frankly ridiculous. Never heard such nonsense in a while.

Also Finnish-Americans are not Finns as they weren’t born in Finland, raised in Finland, speak Finnish or even some of them never visited Finland. I wonder how many could point to Finland on a map. It’s just because it’s fashionable in a relatively new country like the US to identify yourself as anything but American whether it be Italian, Irish, Norwegian or any other country. I guess Pamela Anderson and Matt Damon are Finns in your books.

–Also Finnish-Americans are not Finns as they weren’t born in Finland.

I invite you to say that at a Finnfest gathering. You would be symbolically ripped to shreds by an enraged crowd. Who are you to tell others what their identity is? Stop judging people as if you were god.

“Sweden has around 120,000 Iraqis has Iraq become in any noticeably become more Swedish? “

Good point, maybe we should change geography books now calling Iraq part of Scandinavia. This is typical left-wing nonsense, they live in their dream world in such a way that they really believe in this rubbish. That’s why they insist that Sharia law is the best way to strength freedom and democracy.

–“Sweden has around 120,000 Iraqis has Iraq become in any noticeably become more Swedish?

Another huge hole in your arguments has been exposed, Tony and Klay. Both of you ramble about “assimilation” but would not give the light of day to certain immigrants. Under your world they would live like the blacks did in Apartheid South Africa or in the US South before Abraham Lincoln, a republican by the way, read the Emancipation Proclamation of 1862.

Your ignorance is breathtaking. Turkey is substantially more German nowadays than it ever has been due to a very large number of Turkish-German individuals. There is much more trade and cultural interaction between these countries and societies than could otherwise be explained. Noticeably more German? That depends on how deaf, dumb and blind you happen to be.

I noticed that you admitted your ignorance of the Philippines, but it’s amusing to see you continuing to argue for the anthropological equivalent of the phlogiston theory in relation to migration. Your view seems to be based on some idea that migration is an exclusively one-way process, and that is patently untrue.

It’s too early to say anything about the cultural impact of the contemporary Iraqi diaspora, but intercultural connections between Finland and Somalia are already visible and have been noted by official visitors to Hargaysa.

To argue that Finnish-Americans are not Finns is merely persuasive definition. You are trying to redefine Finnishness in order to reach an empirical conclusion. Finnish-Americans are exploring a particular dimension of Finnish identity. Again this is a nice example on your part of how extreme nationalism ends up eating itself, as every individual claims that her specific understanding of national identity is the only really true one. National identity is not a matter of satisfying a certain arbitrary set of tick-boxes, but of family resemblances along a cultural continuum.

It may help you to see this point if you consider the problem of absolutely defining the difference between ionic and covalent bonding.

A “good” article? I think this guy, Jari Lehto, is a Muutos 2011 follower. What gives him the authority to speak about this matter? Does he work with refugees? Has he studied the topic?

The problem with the ongoing debate in Finland is that any one can take part. It would be a bit as if I, a layman in IT technology, would go pushing my opinion without even understanding how the whole thing works. This, I believe, is who Jari Lehto is.

“A “good” article? I think this guy, Jari Lehto, is a Muutos 2011 follower. What gives him the authority to speak about this matter?”

—-

“In a Western society we debate matters. We don’t slam others who you may disagree with. That’s the Latin American way, which has changed radically from the past. Many times your arguments and how you believe matters should be discussed bring me back to the dictatorship in Argentina. Many of the same argument used by people then you are using now.”

–The argument is that when you immigrate you are not making your home country multicultural, only the host country.

Assimilation is a myth. A country gives people dignity. Assimilation robs it from them. A child who grows up multiculturally, has the opportunity to be proud and learn his/her language and culture, will be more receptive to accepting the host culture and language. You cannot destroy people and then rebuild them culturally. We are diverse societies in many ways. Only dictators like Stalin and Hitler wanted to mold the monoculture.

Tony, you once said you were a very religious man. Do you agree with Hussein Mohammed’s view in this opinion piece, he states that religious fundamentalists or conservatives like Timo Soini are just as big of a threat to our western democratic institutions as radical islamists. I personally think he is spot on.

-‘ conservatives like Timo Soini are just as big of a threat to our western democratic institutions as radical islamists. I personally think he is spot on.’

Wow in that case Denmark or Switzerland that have nationalistic conservative parties as part of government are as non-Western and undemocratic as Iran or Saudi Arabia who are run by radical Islamists. In essence that is what you have implied Enrique. Do you agree with this?

–I consider the Danish People’s Party far-right in the same league as BNP and Jobik of Hungary. Some elements of the True Finns are there too like Halla-aho. I haven’t made any other comparisons with Iran or Saudi Arabia.

But Klay, what are your opinions about the revolutions in the Middle East? What do you think about them. You haven’t said a word about what you think on this front.

I see… So, once again our translation gets a bit… strange…. Well, that happens, doesn’t?

Very well, I’ll give my opinion about this article instead of just slam the author in an Argentinean Dictatorship way, alright?

He’s talking about politically imposed religious conservatism, witch I’m also against. I said here may times that religion is private matter and this is my biggest problem with Muslims who insist in rubber their religion in our faces.

As a conservative, I believe in fiscal sanity, free market, small government and minimum regulations, that being said I can’t support religious conservatism enforced by law. I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman, however it’s not up to the government to legislate this. It’s up the every and each one of us to make our own mind and decide what is right or wrong.

He’s a liberal, and apparently, his political ideology thumps his religion, something to his credit, I may add. But I ask, how can we know from where someone’s opinion comes from? Is the anti-gay feeling only a religious phenomenon? As I read once – “even non-religion is a religion”.

So how can he say that Timo will legislate based on his religious believes and he won’t, once he clearly call himself a Muslim? And how can he say that Hajjar wants a secular society if he’s demanding for Sharia? A bit of partisan double standards here, perhaps?

But something in his article is invaluable, he clear says that Sharia discriminate against women. That case is definitely closed now.

OK, Tony, if there is a mistake in the translation I admit it. It can be corrected.

Does being a conservative give you the right to judge whole groups of people? Even conservatives believe that free competition is important. The Buenos Aires Herald was during the dirty war a conservative paper and they were one of the few that spoke out against the human rights abuses of the military regime (Robert Cox and James Nielsen). The FT, which is conservative, writes very good editorials and has excellent columnists. None of these treat some groups like the Telegraph with provocative pictures.

Just like an election must be respected, I believe the same thing must apply to the citizens of that country; ie mutual acceptance and respect. To come down on a group(s) because of their religion and ethnicity shows something disturbing in my opinion. It reveals reckless behavior when it comes from politicians.

Two questions:

1) What is the difference between far-right and conservative?
2) What is your opinion on the revolutions taking place in the Arab world?

I think the Arabic world is just pissed with all this rubbish, I have a tremendous sympathy for them. On one side they have bloodthirsty western subsidised dictatorships, on the other, they have undemocratic imposed terror support bloodthirsty Islamic theocracies. I think there so much one can take.

However the question is – what will come after all this? With the Muslim Brotherhood flying around? It may happen just what it did in Gaza, we can end up with democratic elected terror support bloodthirsty Islamic theocracies. We’ll see…

-‘But Klay, what are your opinions about the revolutions in the Middle East? What do you think about them. You haven’t said a word about what you think on this front.’

Well for a start no one can be sure what will happen we’ll just have to wait and find out. My opinion is that the future will not be bright.

People have compared this to Eastern Europe in the late 80’s with the fall of communism but the two revolutions cannot be compared. One was purely based on political systems without any religion involved so without communism the other natural option would be democracy and capitalism. Also before communism a lot of these countries already had a history of democracy unlike Arab countries.

For the the Arab world there’s a 3rd option unfortunately and that is an Islamic state. Arab culture is interwined with Islam and it’s different perceptions. With a young population that is nearly exclusively Muslim and becoming gradually more against the West and in particular America, I cannot see governments being formed that are secular and are not influenced in some way by Islam.

In many of these Arab countries even before the revolutions occurred, society, social circles and class were divided by tribal lines or by the different factions of Muslims (Sunni and Shia) so with a fall of a dictator or an autocratic leader I doubt that any of these lines will be blurred. In fact I believe they will be emphasised as the different groups will vie for power and obviously would want to drum up support from their natural base.

In many of these Arab countries even before the revolutions occurred, society, social circles and class were divided by tribal lines or by the different factions of Muslims (Sunni and Shia)
-And in Christians do not have different factions? 🙂